They hold hands in the car, crawl into each other’s beds for comfort and ascend the heavens in space capsules constructed from elaborately arranged futon pillows.

Max and Sam. Two brothers, 19 months apart — the older one with autism, the younger with a severe case of hero worship.

At ages 5 and 3½, they’re pretty much inseparable, which, as their dad, I find both touching and bittersweet.

Touching because this is how I know it should be: the younger brother idolizing the older one, following his lead as he proudly teaches his symbolic Mini Me to balance on retaining walls and gently flick bug bellies into tiny round balls.

Bittersweet because I know, as most parents of autistic children know, that at some point, this dynamic may well reverse itself, with the protégé overtaking the master.

Never mind the ethical quandaries: Is it right? Is it fair? It’s already happening.

“It’s OK, Max,” Sammy comforts his older brother, whose “big feelings” have once again resulted in Sammy getting screamed at inches from his face. “We can watch your show instead. I don’t need a turn.’’

“It’s OK, Max,” he’ll tell him as I rev up the car stereo. “You can pick the first song. I can wait.”

“It’s OK, Max. You can have the last Orange Fiesta juice box. I’ll have this crappy, no-name grape drink instead.”

It’s an odd thing to confess as the parent of an autistic child, but I sometimes feel more protective of Sammy than I do of Max.

Max will be OK, my gut tells me, with a little help and careful monitoring along the way.

But Sammy? How, I wonder, will this history of indentured servitude affect him in the long run?

I had a funny reaction when Alicia told me she was pregnant with our youngest son: panic, followed by extreme outrage.

“How did this happen? How will we pay for it? Who’s going to change its diapers?”

Not father of the year stuff, I grudgingly concede, but I was worried: finances, energy, the high cost of Huggies Snug & Dry.

What a joke. Within two weeks, Sam and I bonded like Tarzan and Cheeta, Macklemore and Lewis, Chico and the Man, his make-believe quandaries leaving me in stitches by the time he hit 2 (“I’m being chased by a Gruffalo who wants to eat my belly and flush me down the toilet”).

When we found out Max had autism, Sam was 19 months, a freewheeling vagabond attempting to scale household furniture and cram his scraggly stuffies into cookie jars and heating vents.

For an older brother who struggled with the give and take of human interaction, this kid was a godsend.

“Sam, make sure you’re not in my personal space!” Max would declare imperiously as his brother looked bewildered.

“OK, Max!”

“Sam, it’s dark outside — time to fall asleep. FALL ASLEEP! If you don’t fall asleep, I won’t be your best friend!’’

“OK, Max!”

The autocratic cruise director and his dutiful protégé. But it works both ways.

While Sam looks to no-nonsense Max for empirical benchmarks, factual certitude, the correct way to unscrew an Oreo cookie, Max gauges his more emotionally astute brother — in a scientific, bug-under-the-microscope way — for clues on how to interact with people.

It’s yin and yang, Frick and Frack, Julie McCoy and — what was his name? — Gopher.

People ask if they’re twins, and I’ve come to realize it’s not because they look alike — like the interchangeable Minions in Despicable Me — it’s because they’re interconnected. Like the Captain & Tennille. Or the Borg on Star Trek.

To be fair, Max — whose Ayatollah tendencies are balanced by a vulnerable sweetness — has come a long way since he was diagnosed in fall 2011.

At that time, when he wasn’t staring into space or lining up toy trucks, he was having two-hour tantrums over napkins that weren’t folded correctly and toast that was improperly buttered.

It was like Mr. Manners transformed, suddenly, into the Incredible Hulk.

Because he was 3, you couldn’t reason with him, and the screaming was enough to require the purchase of noise-cancelling headphones — for me.

But two years of speech therapy, occupational therapy, behavioural therapy and Daddy tickle fights have helped this tiny titan surpass every limitation imposed by the “Oh my God, he has autism!” school of cautionary horror.

Every parent of a special needs kid knows what I’m talking about: that sucker punch in the gut when the doctor looks you gravely in the eye and tells you “your child is not like the others. He will face challenges. He will need help.”

It feels like the end of the world.

And because the autism community is split over priorities — celebrate differences or find a cure? — because interventions are chronically underfunded, because no one knows what causes this complex brain disorder that affects more kids than diabetes, AIDS, cancer, cerebral palsy, cystic fibrosis, muscular dystrophy and Down syndrome combined, you find yourself giving up hope.

But that’s about you — not your kid. Your kid is just fine, thank you, content to view the world through his own unique prism.

Will he need help? Sure, because life’s a bitch and people feel uncomfortable with those who colour outside the lines. Conform or die.

Will it be tough? You bet. But if they’re like Max, they’ll rise to every challenge.

Is he broken, damaged, in urgent need of repair? Hey, let’s not turn this into a Hallmark movie of the week.

Not to downplay Max’s condition: the motor delays, the inflexibility, the social communication deficits — none of those things have gone away.

But somehow — and I wish I could take credit — he’s evolved into a bright, well-mannered kid with a whimsical sense of humour and keen sense of irony. Like Dick Cavett in short pants.

Stigma? Despite alarmists who consider autism a one-way ticket to social rejection, Max has friends, gets invited to birthday parties and — this one confounds me — is greeted like the Norm character on TV’s Cheers every time he shows up in the kindergarten playground. “MAXXXX!!”

“How did this happen?” I ask my wife as the cognitive dissonance threatens to make my head explode. “I thought he was gonna be shunned and bullied. What’s the deal?”

She shrugs. “He’s easygoing, friendly and has a cheerful disposition — when he’s not feeling disregulated.”

This, of course, isn’t the focus of most autism stories you read in the media, which tend to fall into one of two camps:

(1) Kids so overwhelmingly needy their distraught parents feel compelled to drop them off at public shelters.

(2) Kids everyone thought were lost to the world who turn out to be — get this — scientific bleepin’ geniuses.

As far as I can tell, Max — at the higher functioning end of the autism spectrum — is neither, just a regular kid who loves astronomy, art and gymnastics and who, yes, faces unique challenges.

Does he have meltdowns? You bet, though not as many as Toronto Mayor Rob Ford.

Does he respond well to change? Like the Titanic heading for an iceberg.

Which is where Sammy — the Phil Donahue of 3-year-olds — comes in.

“Sammy, come into my bed and we’ll pretend it’s a rocket ship and go to the cookie planet,” I hear Max suggesting over the baby monitor as I lie comatose in bed.

“THAT’S IT, SAMMY!” he bellows. “YOU’RE NOT MY FRIEND ANYMORE! I WILL NEVER PLAY WITH YOU AGAIN! I DON’T LOVE YOU ANYMORE!”

Oh hell. Who likes compromise? It’s stressful for me, and I’m not on the spectrum. For Max it’s an immovable mountain, and one he will struggle to surpass.

Will he do it? No one would accuse me of being an incurable optimist, but I don’t doubt that — with a little nudging and a lot of screaming — he’ll grow into a happy, productive adult, certainly more well-adjusted than his old man (which admittedly, sets the bar pretty low).

A lot of this has to do with perception. And while we spend a lot of time advocating for support, we take pains to emphasize the upside of Max’s quirks, things like:

“Super-hearing,” which can make out the rumble of a garbage truck a mile away, a self-flushing toilet at 50 paces.

“Super-memory,” which can hear a song once and recite it back with every lyrical nuance brazenly intact.

“Super-vision,” which can gauge the angle of daylight through slats on his bedroom blind for a precise 7:15 a.m. wake-up call. (If you could package this, you’d be a millionaire.)

Hell, we think he’s fantastic — why shouldn’t everyone else?

But the stats tell another story, with nine out of 10 autistic adults unemployed or underemployed, regardless of IQ or education level, says the advocacy group Autism Speaks.

Many live with their parents, their potential squandered, struggling to find their place.

Yikes. I had Max at 47, 20 years after most of my peers had kids. I don’t have the luxury of having him parked in our living room, abandoned by the system, when he’s 50.

Even if I bike, run and swim as if my life depends on it, my youthful vigour is destined to dissipate like the foam topping on a Starbucks latte. Just the way it is.

Which brings me back to Sammy, the buffer between me, Max and eternity, or as I affectionately refer to him, “my insurance policy.”

Never mind that Max has two devoted older sibs who connect with him in a solid, intuitive way.

They’re eight and 12 years older. They have lives to live, mountains to climb.

It’s Sammy — the pint-sized peacemaker — who will be around to witness the milestones, the heartbreaks, to help Max navigate the nuances when things become overwhelming.

But lately he’s looking a little frayed around the edges — like Al Pacino in Serpico. Jittery, circumspect, his frustration rising like a coiled fist.

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